A People's Mic is used when amplified sound is not feasible and there are too many people to easily hear the speaker.
The speaker says just a few words at a time, then pauses as the people who can hear what she said loudly repeat the phrase so people further from the speaker know what was said. For very large crowds, multiple echos might be necessary.
Effective use of the People's Mic requires speakers be concise and avoid the temptation to say phrases of more than a few words at a time.
A "Mic Check" is how a speaker gets attention to the People's Mic and ensures everyone can hear: Everyone repeats the speaker's "Mic Check" until the speaker can be heard through the whole crowd.
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There are other advantages to the use of the People's Mic beyond the utilitarian benefit of sound amplification. The People's Mic also serves to:
1. Focus attention on the issue at hand and encourages people to speak from the stacks, rather than focusing on side conversations
2. Engages participants in the conversation, in that they must listen carefully to the speaker to repeat those words exactly
3. Promotes empathy for points of view that may differ from your own, in that your must speak someone else's idea with your voice
4. Empowers those who have been traditionally unheard, as hearing your idea repeated back in unison by the group is a concrete evidence that they "hear" you
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If a crowd gets too large for the People's Mic to work effectively, the People's Skype, a distributed voice broadcasting and keypad voting system can be used:
![[WWW]](http://wikispot.org/wiki/eggheadbeta/img/sycamore-www.png){kind=small}
http://www.peoplesskype.org
or call the number to start a new mic: 917-719-2006 and tell others the 4 digit PIN to listen in and vote on.
Another possibility is to use cheap low power FM radios (under 1 watt in the UK) http://www.7dayshop.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=110314&r=GOOG one is hooked up to mic and broadcasts. People connect to it using cheap FM radios. If the distance to travel to the edge of the crowd becomes too far for the weak signal, you can simply make a repeater station by plugging in another Micro FM transmitter (as above) to one of the radios and using a different channel.
Other options for large crowds include relaying the speaker's words via walkie-talkies or cell phones, and people near the walkie-talkies or cell phones then repeat the words out loud to further extend the message.
